


Crazy

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Long Walk - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-22
Updated: 2008-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little look into Stebbins's mind, pre-Walk and during the Walk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crazy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zenfu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenfu/gifts).



> Characters belong to Stephen King.
> 
> Originally posted at [Yuletide Treasure](http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/76/crazy.html).
> 
> * * *

Stebbins rolls out of bed at five every single morning like clockwork, whether he has to go to work after the gym or not. Walks (of course) to the gym, an easy fifteen minutes along a road not yet alive with cars. An hour on the treadmill, set at four miles an hour, the luxury of an mp3 player churning tunes into his ears as his legs pump out the miles. Then across to the weights, just so that he doesn't neglect his upper body; can't forget that sometimes legs give out and that it's possible to crawl at four miles an hour, yes it is, but not with disused, flabby arms.

Sometimes when he's waiting for the weight machine that he wants he gets to bantering with the other men, blinking bleary-eyed at the six o'clock sunrise shedding weak beams through the high windows, across the cinderblocks and threadbare blue mats and sweaty backs and shoulders and thighs.

'Must be crazy to be up at this hour.' One yawn sets off a chain of others.

'Gotta stay young and beautiful,' someone gurgles through a swig of water, and this time the shared reaction is laughter.

Stebbins always laughs dutifully when the others do, and each day pushes himself just a little further.

 

Road sweat smells different to gym sweat; dirtier, somehow. Maybe it's because they're not just a few yards away from the showers at all times. Out here they have to take the showers when and where they can get them. Stebbins watches the wind whipping the trees and threatening to tug Scramm's shirt out of his hand, and idly wonders when the alarm will ring and he'll wake up. Hint 1 should be _don't go bugfuck nuts_ , he thinks sourly. There are no alarm clocks here, no comfortable beds to roll reluctantly out of. There is only the road, and the final sleep.

 

After the gym he usually walks to work, using his hard-earned muscles to bag groceries, smiling at customers with every bit as much honesty as he puts into his laughter at people's lame jokes at the gym. Every time a boy of the right age comes through his line he wonders whether one day they will walk together, rejecting some of them as too unfit, too overweight, or simply too inured to the simple processes of day to day life to ever consider stepping outside of them.

It is not a glamorous job, but it doesn't hurt to be able to hand his mother a slim bundle of cash at the end of the week and to know that the gas will stay on and there will be food on the table. She is saving, she says, just in case... and there the sentence always ends. He never prompts her to finish it.

If it's not a work day he often doesn't quite know what to do with himself. Sometimes he goes to the movies, if he has a few spare bucks and if there's anything worth seeing. Sometimes he wanders around the mall, with the vague notion in mind that this is what normal teenagers do. He looks at some of these normal teenagers, the girls with makeup and shrill laughter and cigarettes clutched in nervous fingers, the boys with slicked-back hair and tight jeans and _attitude_ , and then skulks away, avoiding any confrontation. Sometimes the TVs at the mall are showing replays of Walks from previous years; he can stand watching them for hours, watching the ebb and flow of the crowd, watching the bodies fall one by one, and then something drives him back to the gym. Fear? No, no, surely not.

 

At about noon on the second day Stebbins finally gives in and assesses his fellow Walkers. He doesn't have any particular concerns about them, not even Scramm, who looks as if he could walk from Maine to California without any particular problems. Some of the other guys look as if they will make a good distance, and Stebbins is vaguely approving of this notion. What better way to win, after all, than to be the best of them all, the Walker to make it furthest ever, not just furthest in this particular Walk? What better way to impress his father?

 

He finally tells his mother about the Walk the day before the names are drawn. She says nothing, but refuses to watch the drawing with him, and when he taps at her bedroom door and tells her quietly that he's in she rolls onto her side and won't reply. He hears her crying but goes into his own room and closes the door and does fifty stomach crunches and fifty push-ups and then goes to bed to conserve energy.

Sleep is a long time in coming, though, and he can still hear her through the thin walls. He debates getting up and telling her it will be all right, that he'll be coming home after it all, just long enough to gather up her and her things to take them to his father's house. He wants to tell her that even if he doesn't manage that much he'll at least get the damn recognition he deserves - that _she_ deserves. He knows that even more than his due recognition, she deserves better than this, better than the two-bedroom house, better than the wind howling in the corners in winter and the way that the fan in the front room does nothing more than push the air around a little in summer.

He wants to tell her all this and doesn't know how.

He wants to tell her all this and doesn't think he has the right to.

She still has the right to her own pride, after all.

 

Sunlight flashes on the Major's mirrored sunglasses as his Jeep veers onto the road, matching pace with the vanguard, ten yards ahead of them. It's a little intimidating. Stebbins wonders if he has his father's eyes. He doesn't have his mother's eyes, that's for sure. He looks back at the road and starts counting his paces.

'Hey, Stebbins.' It's Garraty, even after his near-death experience still looking cheerful as a puppy.

'What?'

'How many roads must a man walk down?'

The quip makes Stebbins bark out an unexpected genuine laugh. He feels sorry for Garraty, and McVries, and Baker, all the Musketeers labouring under the delusion that they have a chance at winning this thing.

Then he dismisses pity and focuses on the road again.

'Stebbins?' Garraty's voice intrudes again.

'Does McVries know you're talking to me? He'll kill me if I try anything,' Stebbins says.

It's Garraty's turn to laugh. 'Give me a break. This time I have a serious question.'

'Lay it on me, oh seeker after arcane knowledge -- although if you think I have the answer, I don't think it can be that serious a question.' Garraty's face certainly looks serious enough, though, and it takes him a minute to formulate the query in words that will actually come out.

'Do you think I'm crazy? For doing this, I mean. I mean -- Jan -- at least I'm not _married_ , not like Scramm, but still--'

Stebbins cuts him off mid-sentence with a short chopping motion of his hand at throat height. 'Garraty, Garraty, listen. You wouldn't be here if you weren't at least a little crazy. It's my belief that we _all_ are. We're all walking for something, but at the same time we all know the odds -- how could we possibly do this if we weren't crazy? Now go on back to the others.'

Garraty looks as though he wants to say something else, but instead he scurries back to where Baker and McVries are chatting companionably, and soon the three of them are indistinct person-outlines against the crowd.

Stebbins retreats back into silence, and only then does he start to grasp the concept that even though he is not married and not stumbling along the road like a zombie and not begging everyone else for some sort of verification that what he is doing is the right thing, he surely is as crazy as the rest of them.


End file.
